Description:
Even in peacetime, the U.S. operates a string of strategic military bases across the Pacific. In the Philippines, South Korea, and Okinawa, a sprawling sex industry serves the hordes of soldiers, sailors, and Marines set loose on ironically misnamed "rest and relaxation" tours. Let the Good Times Roll presents personal accounts of bar hostesses who make a scant, painful, and often quite dangerous living as prostitutes. "There is a saying," one Filipina relates, "When a person is poor, they will hang on, even to a sharp instrument. That's what happened to me. That's what happens to the women working in the bars of Olongapo." Complaining about her customers, a Korean woman says, "They say they don't hit women while they're drinking in their own country, but they can do as they please since they are in Korea..." Many of the women are supporting children long abandoned by G.I.s; others send money home to families. Told plainly and simply, their stories indict the military system that props up the industry exploiting them and raise questions about how such opportunities to act "manly" keeps the troops in line. --Francesca Coltrera
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